Talented Innovators with Disabilities Showcase Secrets Behind 400 Percent Improvement in New Jobs for People with Disabilities

Washington, D.C, July 27 — A panel of diverse leaders with disabilities and their allies are gathering next Monday, July 30 to discuss key insights into the unprecedented success of hundreds of thousands of Americans with disabilities who entered the workforce last year. This panel, composed of disability employment and workforce development leaders, will be presenting between 10:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. as part of a day long summit sponsored by RespectAbility, a nonprofit organization fighting stigmas and advancing opportunities for people with disabilities.

The focus of their discussion will be the fourfold improvement in employment opportunities for Americans with disabilities over the past year. According to Census Bureau data, 343,483 more people with disabilities joined the American workforce in 2016. This compares to only 87,201 in the previous year. The panel will explore the key factors driving these unprecedented successes. Panelists include:

Janet LaBreck, Disability Employment Expert who is blind herself. She is the former Commissioner of the Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA), within the United States Department of Education.

Ron Painter, Executive Director of the National Association of Workforce Boards. In his capacity at NAWB, Painter travels the country meeting with workforce leaders understand how best to spread innovative trends in human capital development throughout the nation-wide job training system.

Vincenzo Piscopo, Community & Stakeholder, Relations Director, The Coca-Cola Company, is a talented wheelchair user and innovator. Having worked for The Coca-Cola Company for 22 years in a wide variety of capacities, Piscopo now works as Community and Stakeholder relations director where he manages the relationships with disability, veterans and Hispanic organizations as well as United Way and Hands-On Atlanta.

Jim Sinocchi, Office of Disability Inclusion, JPMorgan Chase, is also a wheelchair user and business leader. Sinocchi works closely with senior leaders across the firm to establish consistent standards and processes to better support employees with disabilities and employees who care for disabled family members.

“Employment a cornerstone of ending stigmas and advancing opportunities for the disability community, so the theme of jobs carried throughout the entire event,” said RespectAbility President and co-founder Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi who herself is dyslexic. “But the panel on new job gains is bring great clarity to what it takes for people with disabilities to succeed in the workplace.”

The fundamental message underlying this panel and the broader summit is clear: people with disabilities want to work and are capable of doing an extremely good job. Evidence shows that the vast majority of people with disabilities want to work, technology is making it easier than ever for people with disabilities to seamlessly integrated into the workforce and employees with disabilities can benefit the bottom line of top companies. The panel will be moderated by Donn Weinberg, chair of the Philanthropy Roundtable and trustee of The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation.

The event will be taking place in Rooms 2043, 2044 & 2045 at the Rayburn House Office Building, Capitol Hill, Washington, D.C. Breakfast starts at 8:00 a.m. with formal remarks beginning at 9:00 a.m. The full conference agenda (all open to the press) is available on RespectAbility’s website here: http://www.respectability.org/Summit2018/. Space is extremely limited and RSVPs are required.

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